"Boring! This is so boring!"
Sōgo Shihoin wandered through the endless desert, carrying a black, human-shaped bundle and grumbling nonstop.
"How long have I been walking? Where am I even going? What is my life for?"
"If I stay here long enough, those three questions are bound to drive me crazy, aren't they?"
Sōgo Shihoin poked fun at himself.
The place he was in was called Hueco Mundo, a place completely opposite to Soul Society, filled with an emotion called despair!
There was no sun here. Looking up, there was only cold moonlight, providing this pitch-black world with its sole source of light.
Because there was no sun, and the moon never moved either, the surroundings were forever pitch-black, so there was no concept of north, south, east, or west. Even forward, backward, left, and right became less reliable with the loss of spatial awareness. The entire world followed only one principle: the strong preyed on the weak!
So this world had no friends either. Because everyone needed to survive, there were only two roles in the entire world: hunters and prey, countless hunters and endless prey.
"If I keep staying here, will I really still be sane by the time I return to Soul Society?"
Sōgo Shihoin kept walking forward. He had no idea where his destination was; he simply kept moving without stopping. He hoped to meet a few people he could talk to, or some other creatures. As long as they could talk, that was enough.
Yet the powerful spiritual pressure spreading around him doomed him to find nothing. No matter how powerful the Hollows dwelling on Hueco Mundo's outskirts were, before that spiritual pressure as vast as a starry sea, they became as fragile as glass. Before Sōgo Shihoin could take a closer look, they shattered with a splat.
From then on, the outskirts of Hueco Mundo had one more lonely wanderer... no, wait!
"Looks like it's time to take a look at this thing Ōetsu prepared for me!"
Sōgo Shihoin sat on an unoccupied mound of sand, looking at the black, human-shaped bundle before him, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly.
"Come out! My beloved... what the hell is this?!"
Sōgo Shihoin gently opened the black bundle before him. What lay inside was not the lovely Zanpakuto maid he had imagined, but an old machine resembling a microwave and a small note.
"'Food is scarce in Hueco Mundo. This is a Zanpakuto that automatically absorbs Reishi and converts it into food. It's yours to use-Ōetsu Nimaiya.'"
Sōgo Shihoin picked up the note inside the black bundle and read it aloud.
"So this is just a food processor?"
Sōgo Shihoin looked at the "microwave" before him with some disappointment. It was certainly indispensable, but it could not communicate with him or relieve his loneliness. That was right, all he really wanted was to chat with a lovely Zanpakuto lady. He had no other thoughts whatsoever.
"Let's keep moving!"
With that thought, Sōgo Shihoin put away the food processor in his hands and continued forward. The road of life was long, and he still needed to keep working hard.
Loneliness.
Only those born with powerful spiritual pressure could understand what loneliness meant.
Starrk had never thought of hurting anyone, but ever since he became conscious, he had been constantly hurting the beings around him. Evolving from a Gillian into an Adjuchas had been as ordinary as drinking water, as though that was simply how it should be. Then he continued onward, evolving. After becoming an Adjuchas, Starrk did not stop there. Possessing overwhelming combat strength, he killed every being that tried to kill him merely by defending himself. No matter how much he held back, his opponents' fragility always exceeded his expectations. Eventually, before he knew it, Starrk reached the summit, becoming a highest-ranking Menos Grande, a Vasto Lorde-class Menos Grande-and a monster so powerful that he inspired fear even among Vasto Lordes.
"Who am I? Who is me? What am I going to do?"
Out of loneliness, Starrk talked to himself, and talked, and talked, waiting for the chance that one day he would answer himself, until this day...
Boom!
An impact startled Starrk out of his skyward gaze. Wearing a cloak, he slowly walked toward the sound.
"Menos Grande Bowling! Launch!"
Then he saw an astonishing sight. A man-or, more precisely, a boy-had rolled a hedgehog-like, intermediate Adjuchas-class Menos Grande into a huge ball and hurled it toward ten lower Gillian-class Menos Grande standing neatly in a triangle. Following a violent crash, the ten Gillians instantly dissolved into countless Reishi particles, while the Adjuchas was left on its last legs.
"Ah..."
Starrk's mouth fell open at the astonishing scene before him. Even though he had been suffering the pain of loneliness all this time, he had never thought of hurting others for amusement, though it did look rather entertaining.
"Hmm?"
The boy, Sōgo Shihoin, turned to look at Starrk after sensing his astonishing spiritual pressure.
What met Sōgo's eyes was a beautiful, tall, voluptuous mature woman wearing an ocher cloak, with long dark-green hair, a white helmet on her head, and a patch over her right eye.
Yes, Starrk should not have been described as "he." To be precise, "she" was more appropriate.
"Interesting!"
Sōgo Shihoin felt a trace of curiosity as he looked at the humanoid life-form giving off Hollow-like spiritual pressure. He had been in Hueco Mundo for some time now, but this was his first time seeing a humanoid Hollow in all that time, especially one whose face was almost indistinguishable from a human's.
"Want to join in?"
Sōgo Shihoin tried to communicate with the humanoid Hollow before him.
"..."
Silence. Endless silence. The humanoid Hollow before him paid no attention to Sōgo Shihoin. She simply stood there.
"Uh?"
"I mean, this, game, you, want to join?"
Thinking Starrk did not understand what he was saying, Sōgo Shihoin gestured with both hands and spoke in halting phrases.
"..."
Yet another stretch of silence awaited Sōgo Shihoin.
"Huh?!"
"Do we really have to fight?"
Looking at the silent Starrk before him, Sōgo Shihoin sighed helplessly. He had thought he had finally found a companion he could talk to. He did not even mind if the other party was a Hollow.
"Mm!"
Just as Sōgo Shihoin had given up hope, Starrk gave him a slight nod.
"Hmm?!"
"You can understand what I'm saying?"
Sōgo Shihoin's ears twitched. He caught Starrk's quiet murmur precisely and asked in delighted surprise.
"Yes."
Seemingly because she had never communicated with anyone before, Starrk uttered just one word.
"Great! My name is Sōgo Shihoin. What's yours?"
Sōgo Shihoin excitedly walked up to Starrk and held out his hand.
"Lilynette Starrk!"
Starrk looked at the hand before her and fell silent for a moment before finally reaching out to meet it. She remembered that when someone offered her a hand, she had to offer hers as well to be polite. At the same time, Starrk finally introduced to "someone else" the name she had prepared for hundreds of years.
Wolf uncle became wolf big sister. Bet you didn't see that coming!
Speaking of which, we've got the Tier Harribel faction, the Nel faction, and the Ulquiorra faction. Don't we have a Lilynette Starrk faction?
(End of chapter)